All Souls Weekly                 
Volume 2, Number 32, July 5, 2009

FAITH AND INDEPENDENCE

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, thought a lot about religion and the country he was helping to shape and lead. As a young lawyer, Madison defended Baptist preachers who were arrested for preaching without a license from the established Anglican Church. Later, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers and is considered to have been the principal author of the Constitution. In an 1822 letter to Louisiana lawyer Edward Livingston, Madison reflected on the delicate balance needed between religion and government: